Common Ground
by Irena K
Summary: Trance and Harper discuss free will, death wishes, and ice cream


Disclaimer: Andromeda and all associated characters belong to Tribune Entertainment.

Feedback: is a girl's best friend. Constructive criticism actively encouraged.

Author's note: Alright, so I've seen all of, like, six episodes of the show and written something completely un-betaed. What was I thinking, you ask? I honestly have no idea. My muses have been schizophrenic lately. Tell me you love it, tell me you hate it, just give it to me good, baby.

Spoilers: Big honking ones for 'Ouroboros.'

Rated PG

COMMON GROUND

Some things had changed, as Trance grew older. Whereas once she could sleep through a Magog attack without stirring and still rise at 0700 on the dot every morning, she had now become a much lighter sleeper who believed that mornings were really only for the masochistic or the insane.

That, however, did not stop her stomach from grumbling and waking her up in the middle of the ship's night cycle.

She lay in her bunk for another couple minutes, trying to convince herself that she did not need to get up and go down to mess in order to satisfy her midnight cravings.

Her stomach rumbled again.

__

Be quiet she told it.

__

Hungry it insisted.

Gods, she hated when her involuntary internal functions blissfully ignored all commands from her brain.

She sat up, stretched and yawned, scratching the back of her neck. She bent down and retrieved her pair of purple, fuzzy bunny slippers from underneath the bed. Her taste in clothing had shifted dramatically over the years, but she still liked the comfortable, old slippers, which, by her time, had been lost along with the _Andromeda_.

Besides, Harper had given them to her and, hell, she was allowed to be sentimental if she wanted to be.

She rose and retrieved a hair clip from her nightstand, pulling her red dreadlocks up and away from her face as she slipped quietly out of her quarters. The hall lights were dim, internal power at half strength as the ship's crew slept. A couple hours from now, the lights would come back up to three-quarters strength as Tyr and Dylan rose for their morning jog. And an hour after that Rommie would wake the rest of them whether they wanted to be up or not.

Trance sincerely hoped getting something to eat would mean she could remain asleep until that point.

She arrived in the galley and debated whether to program something into the ship's computer or seek out Beka's secret stash of high-fat, high-carb food that she claimed was only for emergencies but everyone knew was really just comfort food. On the one hand, getting something from the ship would be healthier. On the other, Beka's stuff tasted a whole lot better.

Tough luck, Beka. It was way too late to be thinking about these things. Junk food it was.

She dug around in the kitchen storage space, looking for something that struck her fancy. Rigelian jellies, a sugar fruit from Galadrial, something called baklava. And, then, jackpot.

Ice cream.

Mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Trance had to admit that the human race could get pretty inventive, but by far their crowning achievement had to be ice cream.

And Beka had two cartons of it.

Trance found a spoon, grabbed one carton, and headed off to the observation deck, happily munching away. Insomnia wasn't so bad after all, if she could eat ice cream and watch the stars drift by.

She decided to walk to the upper deck. It was only another four flights up and she was in no particular hurry to get there. However, she had only gone up one level when she heard a noise. She paused, tilted her head to the side, and strained to identify what it was. It kind of sounded like a dying Hynerion wildebeest.

Harper usually called it music.

Right, of course, one of the extra machine shops was on this deck. And Harper, apparently, was still awake.

She sighed, debating whether or not to stop by. Their relationship had pretty much deteriorated back to square one. Less than square one, really, considering the first time they met there was only the awkwardness of being two strangers. Now, not only did Harper see her as a stranger but a stranger that had taken away one of his best friends. Even if it wasn't that way at all.

It was understandable, really. She could get that. That didn't stop her from becoming frustrated or feeling a little hurt.

Trance frowned and looked to the ground. The bunnies on the end of her feet kept smiling at her blankly, unaware of her moral conundrums. She snorted. Looking for advice from foot-ware had to be a sure sign of insanity somewhere. Better to just bite the bullet (whatever that meant – Beka had taught her that one) and see him. Bad vibes or not, there was no way they could rebuild their friendship if all they did was avoid one another.

She walked slowly towards the room at the end of the corridor, wincing as the so-called music grew louder. Honestly, how could any sentient being stand to listen to that racket? She peeked around the open doorway, frowning at the scattered parts that littered the floor of the room. Some of it looked vaguely familiar – was he dismantling the tesseract machine? Trance wasn't sure which surprised her more: that he dismantled it at all or that he'd waited this long to do so.

Harper himself was on his back underneath the body of the machine; feet tapping in beat to the pounding base emanating from the sound system, butt wiggling ever so slightly. He looked ridiculous but sort of precious at the same time. Trance felt a wave of sudden emotion sweep over her and had to swallow against a sudden lump in her throat. No, she was ever so through mourning when he was sitting – all right, lying – right here in front of her.

She took a step into the room and cleared her throat.

Harper pushed himself out to look for the intruder in his domain. His once white T-shirt was stained with oil and grime from a hundred different jobs and repairs, an ambitious hole working its way through the shoulder. One cheek still had a streak of dirt across it and apparently he'd been welding at some point because the goggles were still shoved up on his forehead. He looked…well, frankly, he looked adorable but she still noticed the dark circles under his eyes. She wasn't the only one suffering from a long bout with insomnia.

She smiled softly. "Hey."

A hundred different emotions flashed across his face in the space of about ten seconds before he finally settled on cautious neutrality. "Hey."

"What're you working on?" Trance gestured with her spoon.

His throat worked and again, there was no hiding the hesitation before he answered. "Uh, y'know. Stuff."

"Stuff."

"Yeah. Stuff." The 'you wanna make something of it?' went unsaid.

She sighed and scooped out another mouthful of ice cream. "You're up late."

"So're you."

"Actually, this is me waking up too early."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Well, this was awkward. Look up a definition of 'strained silence' in the _All Systems Dictionary_ and there'd be a picture of the two of them standing right next to it.

"Want to come up with me to obs?"

It was an off-the-cuff offer and Harper blinked in surprise. "Excuse me?"

"You. Me. Obs deck," she reiterated. "I was heading up there anyway and you look like you could use a break." He seemed ready to turn her down when she brandished the carton for him. "I have ice cream."

Another visible struggle before he finally sighed, resigned and acting as if this were a mighty sacrifice for him. "All right, all right. Let me shut things down here so the ship doesn't catch on fire or anything."

Trance nodded and watched as he shuffled tools into one pile, do-dads into another, and his music discs into a box in the back. She certainly hoped he could find everything in there because she knew she never would.

They walked to the upper deck without speaking. They sat on the observation chairs – neither too far nor comfortably close – without speaking. Trance handed Harper the ice cream without speaking. There was a lot of not speaking going on between the two of them.

Trance kind of wished he'd say something completely obnoxious just so she could yell at him and get a conversation going. But, no, it seemed she'd still have to make the first move. Typical.

"You're still mad at me."

He paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth, looked at the food in his hand, and slowly replaced it back in the carton. "I'm not mad at you."

__

Liar her eyes said and he sighed. "Alright, yeah, I am. I mean, jeez, Trance, we could've saved Hohne's life, saved one of the greatest minds in the whole freakin' galaxy, and all you had to do was let me do what was necessary."

She frowned. "What does that mean?"

"It means I don't matter as much. Yeah, the universe will be a little bit darker without my attractive and genius self there to light it up, but it's not gonna be any major blow. But Hohne was, like, shaping *worlds,* influencing governments, the whole shebang. How can you compare?"

"Let me get this straight," she said slowly. "You wanted to kill yourself because in the grand scheme of things, you're only a speck and Hohne's a slightly bigger speck?"

"Hey, that's not – that isn't what I meant!" He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. "It's not that simple."

"Oh, really? Sounds that simple to me."

"Look, it was still *my* decision, okay? My life, my choice, hell, my stupid idea in the first place. And no one else had the right to make that call, not even you."

She stared at him for a minute, jaw working as she attempted to come up with a calm, reasoned response.

"You – you idiot!"

So much for calm and reasonable. Harper gaped.

"You think that what, because you don't put as high a priority on your own life that the rest of us don't? That making some noble sacrifice in the heat of passion was going to make up for the fact that you were just giving up?"

"I was not-"

"Bull-shit," she spat. "You were so concerned about losing your free will, you were going to kill yourself just to make sure you could die the way you wanted to, never mind the way the rest of us felt about it. Well, I'm sorry that I trod all over your precious freedom to make stupidly suicidal decisions, but I sure as hell am not gonna apologize for saving your life! And – and give me that!"

She snatched the ice cream out of his hands and stabbed viciously into it with the spoon. When, exactly, had she forgotten his amazing ability to royally tick her off?

Harper looked vaguely shell-shocked at her sudden outburst and spent a couple minutes trying to come up with a response. When he did, it was, "I didn't even think you *knew* words like 'bullshit.'"

Trance rolled her eyes. "Grow up, Harper."

"What, like you?"

She winced. "Low blow."

"Yeah, sorry." He bit his lip. "I'm not really suicidal."

"I know."

"But I'm not scared of death either," he admitted. "Been around it too long, y'know? I mean, yeah, not gonna go out of my way to get killed or anything, but if it happens, hey, it happens. Just the way the universe works."

She nodded and repeated, "I know."

"Do you?" He tilted his head to the side, giving her what Beka once dubbed his 'curious puppy' look. "I've seen you come back from the dead twice now. You don't seem to have a whole lot to worry about."

"I didn't come back from the dead."

"Yes, you did."

"Trust me, I didn't."

"Then what did you do?"

"I can't tell you."

"Can't or won't?"

"Can't." At his disgruntled expression, she sighed. "It's not you. Well, it is, but it's not you specifically. I mean – blech. I'm screwing this up." She popped another scoop of ice cream in her mouth and started over. "Explaining to you how I can do certain things, it's – it's like taking someone who's been blind their whole life and trying to explain to them what blue is."

Harper opened his mouth, closed it, and frowned thoughtfully. "Huh."

"Exactly."

"Is that how everything is for you?"

"Kind of." She shrugged. "I just operate differently than humans do, than most other species do, really. It's not good or bad just…well, different."

Harper drew a leg up onto his chair and laced his fingers over his knee, resting his chin on top of them. "I think that's the closest you've ever gotten to actually telling me what you are."

"Really?"

"Yeah. You know, Dylan would've stopped bothering you so much if you had just told him that in the first place."

"You think so?"

"No, not really. Helps me a little, though."

"That's what I thought." 

She offered him the ice cream again and he accepted it. He munched silently for a minute, before taking a look at the side of the container. "Isn't this one of Beka's self-cooling cartons?"

"Yep."

"You raided her secret stash, didn't you?"

"Yep."

He handed her the spoon. She leaned over and grabbed another bite. "She's gonna be pissed."

"I'll reimburse her." She gave the spoon back and they began to alternate every other mouthful.

He frowned. "Why do we still call it her secret stash, anyway? We all know about it."

"Dylan doesn't."

"Well, okay, except for Dylan."

"I don't know. I think it gives her an illusion of control over us."

Harper snorted. "Like she ever had control."

"Hey, far be it from me to destroy her fantasies."

They shared a smirk and for a second time that evening, Trance found herself blinking back tears. Gods, it had been so long since she'd last seen him that she almost imagined there were days that had gone by where she hadn't missed this, just being with him, talking about nothing in particular. It was an illusion that arriving here had stripped away swiftly.

She had once told Dylan that she didn't know if saving Harper would lead to a better future. But now, sitting with her once-and-hopefully-future best friend, silly bunny slippers stuck on her feet and ice cream slowly melting, she couldn't possibly see how it could get any worse.

And that was a good thing indeed.

He looked at her curiously. "Something wrong?"

She shook her head and smiled. "Not a thing."

He scooped out the remains of their snack. "Want the last bite?"

"That's alright. You take it."

He did.

FIN


End file.
